The Hammond Organ

The Hammond organ was introduced in US Patent 1,956,350.

A difference between the Hammond organ and Telharmonium is that Telharmonium tones were something like ``bandlimited square wave'' tones (see Fig.H.1), while the Hammond organ tone wheels were carefully machined to provide nearly sinusoidal components. Thus, the Hammond organ truly classifies as an ``additive synthesis device'' (§H.8).

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About the Author: Julius Orion Smith III
Julius Smith's background is in electrical engineering (BS Rice 1975, PhD Stanford 1983). He is presently Professor of Music and Associate Professor (by courtesy) of Electrical Engineering at Stanford's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), teaching courses and pursuing research related to signal processing applied to music and audio systems. See http://ccrma.stanford.edu/~jos/ for details.